diff --git a/tupak/__init__.py b/tupak/__init__.py
index da12ce0bc78f1074768e269c29cb48c6004f6dd3..e91008d3a0b33c5985e77a218ccf0e0dc0979b6c 100644
--- a/tupak/__init__.py
+++ b/tupak/__init__.py
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 from __future__ import print_function, division
 
-# import local files
+# import local files, utils should be imported first
 from . import utils
 from . import detector
 from . import prior
@@ -8,4 +8,4 @@ from . import source
 from . import likelihood
 from . import waveform_generator
 from . import result
-from . import sampler
\ No newline at end of file
+from . import sampler
diff --git a/tupak/utils.py b/tupak/utils.py
index 866d8e89d5b9f62ef4adb88892202598a565d8a9..cd15302089101f7f509da80b448ab896b1c4ee04 100644
--- a/tupak/utils.py
+++ b/tupak/utils.py
@@ -543,6 +543,14 @@ def set_up_command_line_arguments():
 
 command_line_args = set_up_command_line_arguments()
 
+if 'DISPLAY' in os.environ:
+    pass
+else:
+    logging.info('No $DISPLAY environment variable found, so importing \
+                  matplotlib.pyplot with non-interactive "Agg" backend.')
+    import matplotlib
+    matplotlib.use('Agg')
+